


En Nuestros Sueños

by imma_redshirt



Series: Little Stories [3]
Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: Dreams, F/M, takes place a few years after Héctor left
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 04:00:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13942152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imma_redshirt/pseuds/imma_redshirt
Summary: Imelda's mamá had always told her,The dead visit us in our dreams.But Imelda cannot believe her. Shecannot.Because Héctor visited her one night while she slept, a specter in her mind, a soft dream, with words she could not recall.





	En Nuestros Sueños

**Author's Note:**

> Another thing moved on over from Tumblr. Edited and revised (I just love using this phrase, it sounds so professional??)
> 
> Also! Wanna thank white-throated-packrat over on Tumblr for giving me a link for hovertext instructions! It's super nifty, run your mouse over the Spanish words in that first sentence and a translation will appear! =D
> 
> If I've made any mistakes, regarding my awful Spanish or grammar or anything at all, please let me know!

Her mamá told her, _Los muertos nos visitan en nuestros sueños._

Because years after her abuelo had died, her mother had dreamed of him in the garden where he’d sat every morning to greet the sun, and he’d spoken words to her that she could not recall after waking. The words had slipped from her mind like soil through fingers, but they had left tears in her eyes, and love in her heart. 

Imelda had never been sure how much she’d believed her mother.

And now, Imelda cannot believe her. She _cannot._

Because Héctor visited her one night while she slept, a specter in her mind, a soft dream, with words she could not recall.

No matter how much she hates him now, she _will not_ believe he is dead.

She will not.

But she cannot deny that the dream had been different from the others. Usually, when she dreamed of her husband, she dreamed he returned from his tour and she yelled at him. She slammed the door in his face, or pulled him close and held him _tight_ , or gripped his shirt and demanded _Why?_ In the early months after he boarded a train and never came back, she dreamed that he never left, and Coco had a father, and Imelda had the love of her life, and she hadn’t been abandoned with a child to raise, and she didn’t have to hate him. 

But those dreams had always been hazy, everything but Héctor’s face faint and faded like old paint. She always woke up angry, gripping her pillow so her knuckles hurt, jaw clenched against curses that threatened to fall from her lips.

This dream… this dream had been different. 

In the kitchen he had appeared. 

Flickers of sunlight had filtered in through the open window, the curtains had fluttered in the wind. Imelda could see flecks of dust on the window sill, and a wayward orange flower carried by the wind from the neighbor’s honeysuckle plant. Coco had been on the counter, swinging her feet and nibbling on a piece of taffy as Imelda rolled out tortillas de harina, white flour coating her palms and fingers. 

His appearance had been gradual, slow footsteps from the open door, his presence behind her growing stronger the longer she waited. 

She raised her eyes and saw his reflection in the ajar window. A youthful face, the face of the young man who had left her, and sad eyes looked back at her.

“Well?” She said, pushing the rolling pin hard against the ball of dough, and waited.

Finally, Héctor’s arms went around her waist, and he leaned gently against her, laying his chin on her shoulder. She rolled the ball of dough out flat, turned it and rolled again.

Héctor whispered something against her ear. He pressed his lips against her cheek, held onto her as if she would fall away. 

Imelda took another ball of dough, spread flour across the counter, set the dough down. Still, Héctor held her, chin on her shoulder, and watched. He hummed a lazy tune, said something soft and loving. She noticed a tremble in his arms. She wanted to turn to see his face, pull him close, never let him go again.

She rolled the dough out, unable to do anything else but listen.

A breeze had blown in and his tuft of unruly hair had brushed against her brow, and with a gasp she had opened her eyes to an empty bed, a dark room, silent morning twilight out her window, and tears on her cheek. She’d laid there in the silence, staring at the dark ceiling, fingers pressing lightly against her face. 

It had been years since he left. Years spent alone. Years since she’d last heard his voice.

An emotion swelled in her chest that she hadn’t felt since he had left, and she took a gasping breath. 

What had he whispered to her?

Her mamá had never remembered what her abuelo had told her. But, Imelda reasoned, this was not the same.

_This was not the same._ And it could never mean what it had meant for her mamá. 

She tried to remember what he had said to her, so that her dream would be different from her mamá’s, but the words never came to her. Only the swell of an old grief, the tingle of a kiss faint on her cheek, the awful sensation of holding happiness for a moment before it was taken away again.

And it was hard to deny, when the next day she overheard Coco whispering to her friend of a dream in her kitchen, her younger self laughing with delight in the arms of her papá, while mamá made tortillas and laughed with them.

**Author's Note:**

> Imelda's mamá's dream is based on my own when I was a kid, a few months after my grandpa passed away.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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